Does Heavy Drinking Increase Your Risk of Prediabetes?

If you’re a young person whose wellness is affected by early-stage hypertension, heavy drinking may put your wellbeing at risk of diabetes. This is according to researchers at the San Antonio Hospital, University of Padova, Italy, whose cohort study of stage 1 hypertensive individuals showed that more than 10 drinks a day boosted the risk of prediabetes (in which your serum glucose between 100 and 125 mg/dL) more than six times.

Lucio Mos and colleagues presented their findings at the European Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation’s EuroPRevent meeting, noting that if you have less than five drinks a day, you are neither harming or improving your risk for prediabetes. Session moderator Paul Dendale, MD, PhD, of the University of Hasselt, Belgium, commented that this is a surprising finding, because there is an established link between moderate drinking and a protective effect in cardiovascular disease and certain other conditions.

The original aim of the Hypertension and Ambulatory Recording Venetia Study (HARVEST) was to look at white-coat hypertension in patients seen at 17 hypertension clinics in northeast Italy, and so Dendale surmised that the hypertensive population studied may have accounted for the difference in the study’s findings. He noted, ‘Alcohol is also increasing the blood pressure, so it might be that, there again, you have some effect in a population that is more sensitive to alcohol.’ Dendale concluded that, therefore, the message remains an emphasis on moderation.

1,177 patients, ages 18 to 45, participated in the study, all of whom had systolic blood pressure between 140 and 159 mm Hg, or diastolic pressure of 90 to 99 mm Hg. The participants had never been treated for hypertension and were free of other important risk factors for atherosclerosis at baseline. The study involved 6.5 years of follow-up, during which time average glycaemic levels climbed with greater daily alcohol intake (P=0.02), as did prediabetes (P=0.006). Those who drank more also tended to have higher cholesterol (P=0.03), and 3.1 times more likely to have sustained hypertension (95% CI 1.4 to 7.2). However, when it came to those who abstained from alcohol, and those who drank mild amounts, the researchers reported that the risk of prediabetes was similar.

Does Heavy Drinking Increase Your Risk of Prediabetes?

Categories: Alcohol, blood pressure, Heavy Drinking, hypertension, Prediabetes, Research, risk, study

Shocking Stats: 89% of the Unaware US are Near-Diabetic

Federal health officials have reported that of the estimated 79 million Americans whose wellbeing is at risk of diabetes, only 11% know about it. According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), these people have a condition known as pre-diabetes, which means that their blood sugar levels are higher than normal, which puts them in danger of developing diabetes.

Report author Ann Albright, director of the CDC’s Division of Diabetes Translation, explained, ‘We have a huge issue with the small number of people who know they have it. It’s up a bit from when we measured it last, but it’s still abysmally low. We need people to understand their risk and take action if they are at risk for diabetes. We know how to prevent type 2 diabetes, or at least delay it, so there are things people can do, but the first step is knowing what your risk is – to know if you have pre-diabetes.’

Albright said that there are many wellness risk factors for having pre-diabetes, including being overweight or obese, being physically inactive and not eating a healthy diet. She noted that whether or not you fall into one of these categories, it’s always a good idea to see your doctor and have your blood sugar levels checked. The disease also has a genetic component, according to Albright, which is why having a family history of diabetes is another risk factor. ‘Your genetics loads the gun, then your lifestyle pulls the trigger,’ she said.

The report was published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and showed that the lack of pre-diabetes awareness was the same across the board, irrespective of income, education, health insurance or access to health care. Dr Spyros Mezitis, an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said that the numbers are, at the very least, troubling. ‘People don’t know about pre-diabetes, they don’t exercise, they don’t eat appropriate foods and we are going to have many more diabetics in the near future than we have now,’ Mezitis said.

Pre-diabetes is such a concern because it can lead to diabetes, as well as problems with your heart, kidneys, circulation and vision. Albright noted that 30% or more of those with pre-diabetes will develop diabetes over the next ten years, but she also pointed out, ‘the good news is we know there are things you can do to prevent or delay the development of type 2 diabetes. You can prevent or delay diabetes if you lose 5% to 7% of your body weight and get 150 minutes of physical activity a week.’

Dr Joel Zonszein, director of the Clinical Diabetes Centre at Montefiore Medical Centre in New York City, added that exercise and diet can reduce your risk of diabetes by about 58%, and ‘giving the drug metformin can reduce the risk by 31%. Lifestyle changes, together with metformin, which the American Diabetes Association recommends for pre-diabetes, will be very effective.’

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Shocking Stats: 89% of the Unaware US are Near-Diabetic

Categories: Diabetes risk, Prediabetes, Unknown

Die-abetes: Do Patients Need to Do More to Survive?

In spite of the fact that many diabetics take care of the wellbeing by taking medications and pursuing an effective, wellness lifestyle, diabetes survival rates don’t seem to be improving. According to emerging research, published in Population Health Metrics, more needs to be done to extend diabetic lives.

If you have diabetes or pre-diabetes (dysglycemia), it is recommended that you maintain a healthy weight, eat healthy foods, stay physically fit, and take certain medications to achieve target blood sugar levels. However, a new study – led by Andrew Stokes, a PhD student in demography at the Population Studies Centre at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia – has shown that while these approaches may improve health, survival rates for dysglycemic patients do not appear to be improving.

Alongside his colleague Neil Mehta from the Department of Global Health at Emory University in Atlanta, Stokes evaluated the numbers on 10,291 non-diabetic patients, 2,339 with pre-diabetes and 2,050 with diabetes.  All subjects participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and were aged 35 to 74 at baseline. Stokes and Mehta compared the mortality rates of two populations—one from 1988 to 1994 and one from 1999 to 2002.

The mortality rate for individuals with pre-diabetes increased from 11.19 to 14.02 deaths per 1,000 person-years, and from 20.34 to 20.82 deaths per 1,000 person-years in people with diabetes. The study’s authors noted that the death rate change for those with diabetes and pre-diabetes was a ‘non-significant increase in mortality over time,’ but when compared to the decreasing death rate of populations with normal blood sugar or no diabetes, (7.81 to 6.04 deaths per 1,000 person-years) it was a different story.

According to Stokes, ‘We found that individuals with pre-diabetes and diabetes, taken together, experienced persistently higher mortality rates compared to the normo-glycaemic population during 1988-2006, with no evidence of a narrowing gap.’ He added that pre-diabetic people have not been officially diagnosed with diabetes, and so they are particularly vulnerable to premature death because they are not receiving treatment.

‘The lack of improvement in mortality in the dysglycemic population is concerning and suggests that individuals with pre-diabetes and diabetes should be an important focus of future interventions aimed at improving population health in the US,’ concluded the authors. ‘Future work should verify these findings in larger datasets and using more recent cohort experience. Trends should also be examined in more detail—by gender, race/ethnicity and separately for individuals with pre-diabetes versus diabetes,’ Stokes added.

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Die-abetes: Do Patients Need to Do More to Survive?

Categories: Mortality, Prediabetes, Research